Identification Card Issue

In Malaysia, the compulsory use of the identification card was in existence since my parents' teenage time. It was to identify the general public against the communists or some terrorists running around Malaysia, a weeding process. Not sure on how to go about in getting the card done.

But as I grew up during my era (it's not that long ago, ok?), each boy or girl who reaches the age of 12 will need to go to the National Registration Department to apply for an Identification Card, credit card size.

Nowadays, I see babies getting a new designed Identification Card once the parents register the name of the new born child.

In a way, all Malaysians (including illegal fellas who still can get the Malaysian identification cards thru the illegal means via syndicates in which I don't know how they got it done), generally go about their lifes with this small piece of Identification Card whether it's for employment, banking, education, dealings with government depts and moving in & out of highly securitised buildings.

Now, the new Identification Card comes with a chip embedded into it and it could store your full personal particulars, health info, driving licence info and soon, could act as an ATM card????

Reactions from the people in the following two countries have negative feelings over the Identification Card situation:-

UK
The Home Secretary, Alan Johnson, has just announced recently that the compulsory Identification Card scheme will be scrapped. Maybe it was due to lack of fundings as a figure of £4.8 billion was mentioned to implement it.

Maybe it was a political decision as the Conservative party stated that they will scrap the national scheme if their party wins the forthcoming general election.

But it remains compulsory for the foreigners.

USA
There is this guy that equipped himself with Matrics antenna and a Motorola reader into his car. As he moves around, his reader could scan nearby people's info from their identification cards, passports, driver licences from within a distance of twenty feet.

Such reading is possible due to the fact that RFID chips (Radio Frequency Identification) are embedded into such card or passport.

Since 1 June 2009, all americans are required to equip themselves with a RFID tag document to travel.

Somehow, it was mentioned in the same article that there's a fundamental flaw with RFID - each chip is built to faithfully transmit its unique identifier "in the clear, exposing the tag number to interception during the wireless communication." ......... oooooops!

To further enhance or not to implement at all?????
Tags: Identification Card, Radio Frequency Identification, RFID, RFID Chip, RFID Tag, Matrics Antenna, Motorola Reader